Quiet

Roughly 1/3 to 1/2 of us are introverts, Susan Cain writes — but from the way our workplaces, rewards systems, and social values are organized, you’d never know it. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking is her carefully-researched effort to shine a bright light on the virtues of introversion, and it gives us a lot to think about.

Cain has a background in law, and her skill at making an argument is apparent very quickly in Quiet. She wants to show that in America, extroversion is assumed to be the norm for healthy functioning, and this bias is reflected in pretty much all of our societal structures. She makes her case through a varied and interesting body of evidence, and I really liked this breadth of scope. The book concludes with suggestions for parents of introverts.

By the end, I grew a little weary of the relentless focus on how introverts have a hard time in America. There were a very few places in which I knew enough about the subject to tell that Cain’s reading of the evidence seemed to over-reach. Her argument is narrowly focused on introversion, but there are always other factors to be considered too. Maybe the root difference comes from my Christian orientation, which doesn’t see temperament or personality as the rock-bottom of being. Christian tradition views even “weakness” as a source of strength because it’s at the point of weakness that we lean on God, whose purposes are always good, and whose generosity and love make untold resources available to us when we trust him. It gives us a different perspective on adversity.

But even where I felt her argument was thin, Cain’s insights are invariably interesting, and this is not a book that can be dismissed. I think it will end up being important for the way it questions assumptions and recasts introverts. It certainly made me think. Toward the end, where the book delves into what happens when extrovert parents have introvert children, I thought of some homeschooling families I know in which the mothers are so worried about providing adequate “socialization” for their children, they seem to be trying to recreate their introvert children in an extrovert mold through lots of scheduled activity and team sports. It’s something I’ve noticed and puzzled over — along with the way home educators begin the enterprise out of a desire for flexibility and customization in their educational approach, then end up herding together into group activities and pre-packaged curricula that simply mimic institutional education. Maybe Cain is right about the strong pull of certain cultural norms, including the extrovert ideal.

Of course I thought about my own history as well. Like perhaps many who would be attracted by this book, I think of myself as an introvert, and like many I’m reassured by the distinction Cain makes between “antisocial” and “differently social.” Of course we all need people; it’s a question of which settings enable us to thrive, and whether we recharge in social or solitary pursuits.

My mother tells me that as a toddler, I was happy to sit on the couch looking at books. This was so different from my very active older brother that my father would wonder what was wrong with me. Cain might say this is a common American response to introversion, and those of us who are quieter and more comfortable with solitary reflective or creative pursuits can probably look back over our lives and see many places where we felt a similar reaction, whether in classrooms where group learning was the norm, or work settings with open floor plans and lots of meetings, or social situations that reward the gregarious, or churches that privilege the highly vocal and demonstrative.

The pressure of these experiences can be subtle but pervasive. As I said earlier in this review, even adversity can serve a purpose. Even though I can see some missed opportunities along the way, having to be myself in opposition to the norm at some points has helped the color to come up in who I am, and I’m sure this is true for others too. But Cain reminds us that there is a value in thinking about how we can encourage the unique gifts of those around us, and provide opportunities for our children, family, friends, and co-workers to thrive whatever their temperament may be. My review barely scratches the surface of Quiet, a rich resource both intellectually and practically to help us create more room for the contributions of introverts, and to improve the conversation across the temperamental spectrum.